


The Life That I Have

by jlovesallfandoms



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Complete AU, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, World War II, expect some people to die, it is world war 2 after all :/, romance set in ww2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:40:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29483838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jlovesallfandoms/pseuds/jlovesallfandoms
Summary: You enlist as a nurse because you foolishly believe you can make a difference in this cruel world.He enlists because he has no choice.Captain Levi, the golden posterboy of your country's army, arrives to London as your patient when you're only three weeks fresh out of basic training.Levi/Reader set in the Second World War. AU
Relationships: Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin)/Reader, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin)/You, Levi Ackerman & Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	The Life That I Have

**Author's Note:**

> This story is inspired by the famous WWII poem "The Life That I Have" 
> 
> The life that I have  
> Is all that I have  
> And the life that I have  
> Is yours.
> 
> The love that I have  
> Of the life that I have  
> Is yours and yours and yours.
> 
> A sleep I shall have  
> A rest I shall have  
> Yet death will be but a pause.
> 
> For the peace of my years  
> In the long green grass  
> Will be yours and yours and yours.

It’s your second week on the job when you meet him. Your white dress is freshly laundered and pressed. Your cap is pinned to your hair without a flyaway in sight. Your stockings are new without runs or tears. Your red lipstick gleams in the London daylight. This alone sets you apart from every other nurse in the hospital. Everyone was struggling in their own way, and stockings were becoming more and more of a commodity. You are a fresh graduate from your nursing school and were just flown to London weeks ago straight out of your basic training. You bought yourself new stockings and lipstick as a treat. Now, however, your hands are shaking as your lead nurse gives you the report on your new patient.

“This is Captain Levi Ackerman of the Special Ops Corps. The patient has suffered a gunshot wound to his right ankle. They were able to extract the bullet grounside, but they transferred him here for further recovery and treatment. The patient has not reported any extraneous pain or discomfort, but that may just be due to a high pain tolerance. Watch his wound for infection. Clean his wound and dressings every three hours.” The nurse’s lips form a tight line when she pauses to look over the man’s chart once again. Her tired eyes dart back and forth between each line. Her hair lies flat and her nursing cap is barely hanging on. You can see a tear in her stocking and blood on the hem of her skirt.

“ _Captain_ Levi?” Your voice forms an audible squeak before you can stop yourself. The man lying on the bed in front of you is a prodigy, practically the golden poster boy of the US Army. He’s been titled as the country’s strongest, or the country’s greatest hope. Hell, you’ve seen commercials of him before movies are screened in the theatres. And they trust _you_ to care for him?

“Is that a problem? You will give this man the care that is befitting for him, and you will give him the care that any US Army Nurse will give any soldier.” The nurse narrows her eyes and you can see her skin flake under her makeup. She has no patience for an inexperienced girl like you, but you’re all they got for now.

“Yes, ma’am.” You salute. She shakes her head and hands you the soldier’s chart and is off to care for her next patient. You look back from the chart to the country’s strongest. You frown. He doesn’t look so menacing now. In every commercial you’ve seen him in, his eyes always seem like dark hooks for the soul, as if daring an enemy to cross his path. You’ve seen him scale buildings and snipe enemies from a mile away. But now, his lips form a thin line and a bead of sweat slowly rolls down pale skin. He almost looks peaceful now. You sigh and set down your chart and try to pat the sweat off his forehead with a cotton square. You doubt your capabilities to care for this man, but you decide there’s no point in prolonging the inevitable.

“Captain Levi?” You try to wake him. No such luck. You gently tap his shoulder and try again, louder this time. “Captain Levi, are you awake?”

The man opens his eyes and as if the reflexes are instilled in him, he quickly darts upright in bed as if you were an attacker. Your eyes widen as you pin down his shoulders. Your reflexes are admittedly slower than his, but you were specifically trained for this type of scenario. You try your best to keep him in bed so he won’t hurt himself, but even in a weakened state the man is incredibly strong. You try not to put too much pressure on his shoulders, not only because he is injured, but you’re sure you’d get your ass chewed out if you bruise humanity’s strongest. He stares you down with the same emotionless grey eyes you remember seeing in the commercials and you feel your stomach drop.

“Where am I?” He coughs. A twinge of guilt bites at you and you loosen your grip on him.

“You are in King’s College Hospital in London, Captain. You were flown out here after suffering a gunshot wound, and until you can return you are under my care.”

“A hospital?” At that, he groans and slumps back into his bed. He rolls his eyes and takes a better look at his surroundings. A curtain separates him from the nearest patient, but he can see the frantic expression of each nurse that passes by. “I hate these places. The used sheets are positively disgusting.”

You pause and try your best to hide your surprise. You just told this man that he was shot in the field, and his biggest worry is not of his health or the fact that his wound may be infected or festering, but rather on the cleanliness of his bedsheets. Just wait until your housemate Sasha hears about this. You can already hear your best friend yelling it out now for all of the streets to hear: _humanity’s strongest is a clean freak! Who’da thunk?_

“I’ll get you a new one once I’m done here, captain.” You try to assure him, but are cut off by the screams of a nearby patient.

“Forget it. It’ll just make your job harder. I’ll deal with it, just get on with it.” He sighs and lies flat on the bed as if preparing to be prodded by you. You make a mental note to belay that and get this annoying insistent man new bed sheets once you're done anyways. You’re already an inexperienced nurse but if word got out that you made the captain upset in any way, you’re sure this is where your career would end.

You wash your hands and tell him you’re going to check on his wound. He nods and closes his eyes as if wishing he was any other place but there. When you lift the blanket covering his ankle you do your best to not react. You bite your lip and you can feel the taste of blood in your mouth. They extracted the bullet and probably momentarily stopped the bleeding, but they didn’t even bother to stitch him back up. Cysts have formed in the pool of blood and you can see the beginning stages of necrosis. Were they in that big of a rush to fly him out here, or were the nurses groundside inexperienced like you? No, that can’t be right. They usually send the experienced nurses groundside and they let new nurses like you train in military hospitals until then. Shit, well if the captain is already in this bad of a state you’ll never be able to go groundside. What if the captain loses his foot? What if the captain loses his foot under _your_ care? What if you’re the one that has to personally cut it off? Your mind runs for about ten more miles before the captain interrupts you.

“So it’s that bad?” The captain scoffs and you realize he’s watching you now. You look at his face, but quickly regret it. You know he’s not angry at you personally, but his gaze is so daunting that you don’t have the courage to meet it. Your cheeks redden at your inexperience. A good nurse would have hidden any signs of distress.

“No, captain. I’m just going to have to clean your wound before I can dress it.” You do your best to smile as you grab a disinfectant. You know he sees right through you, but you are lost at what else to say. You sit down at his bedside and work in silence. This time, you brace yourself before you uncover his wound again. Thankfully, you don’t make as much of a fool of yourself this time in front of humanity’s finest and manage to display your best poker face. Then again, Sasha always tells you you’re shit at lying. You purse your lips and start to pour alcohol on his wound. He visibly jerks back in pain and you hear him curse. 

“Sorry, captain.” You whisper. You should have warned him it was going to burn.

“Levi…” He groans and adjusts himself in bed. “The name’s Levi.”

“Right… sorry, Levi.” You test out his name but it feels odd to address him so plainly. You know your mother would knock you upside the head if she knew you were addressing the country's greatest hope by his first name. You look back at him with concern. “Levi, this is going to hurt again.”

He nods and braces himself. You continue to work in silence and clean the excess dead skin from his wound. The captain, bless him, grits his teeth and hides the pain. You know this could not be the worst pain he has experienced by far. A man of his ranking must have suffered much worse, but your bumbling inexperience does not help the matter much either.

“And what is your name?” He breathes coolly as you dab off the final drops of alcohol. You look up and you can feel your stomach do another somersault. Is the captain going to report you to your lead nurse? You tell him your name and he nods. “Are you from here?”

“Oh, London? No, sir.” You almost laugh as you lean over to grab your stitching needle and thread. Everyone here is far too posh for your liking. The people in London look you over when they see you wearing your American Army nursing uniform. You know none of it is personal, the war is hitting everybody hard. But you can remember the first time you walked into the hospital with your fresh new lipstick and stockings. _It’s that girl from the states_ , they’d whisper. You gather the bandages necessary to dress the captain's wound and warn him to brace for pain again.

“It’s Levi.” He winces in obvious pain again and you flinch.

“Sorry,” you breathily apologize, partly for addressing him wrong, and partly for your guilt in causing him even more pain. “But no, I’m actually from the states. I just finished basic training in Hawai’i a few weeks ago.”

“And they shipped you all the way out here? How much did you piss your commander off?” Levi scoffs and it almost makes you want to jab him harder this time with your bandage wrappings, your guilt be damned.

“I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class.” You murmur, and the more you work you notice the less shaky your hands become.

“Your confidence has calmed me. Thank you for letting me know, miss.” Levi drawls on sarcastically. You bite your lip and finish off his stitching, eager to get as far away from him as possible.

“Well I’m all done here, Levi. I’ll go and get you those blankets now.” You throw away the used supplies and wash your hands. Levi watches you closely as if he were a little kid trying to predict which way an ant would run. Before he could reply, you hear a loud scream from the other corner of the floor. The sound jars you and you feel yourself jump. Unbeknownst to you, Levi would laugh if he wasn’t so annoyed.

“I think he needs more attention than I do.” Levi groans and slumps lower in his bed like a child. He picks off a stray dust particle from his sheets and flicks it off with disdain. “If I’m correct that’s one of the brats in my squad.”

You rush over to the other side of the floor and your heels ache by the time you reach his bedside. A swarm of nurses are already there. Three are holding him down and you can see Sasha in the corner preparing a medication dose.

“Armin? Where’s Armin?” The boy screams louder. You see tears flooding to his bedsheets and chills flash down your spine. You can see some second and third degree burns on his arms. The boy tries to claw at his face, but the nurses forecefully hold him down even more. You want to react, but you find yourself frozen in your steps. You were taught in university and even in basic on how to treat agitated patients, but not traumatized little boys. This boy could not be a day over eighteen. He must have enlisted on his birthday.

“Calm him down so I can inject him.” Sasha whispers to you. Her voice calms you down and brings you back to reality. Even though you two room together, she has been here far longer than you. She knows the ropes and this probably isn’t the first boy she’s had to retain.

“Sir, I need you to calm down.” You put your hand on his shoulder and he looks to you desperately.

“Please, please tell me Armin is alive.” He begs you now. His green eyes pour into your soul and you can feel it tear into you. You want to cry too. “Please. I went back for him. I tried to save him. He needs to be alive. I can’t go home without him. Mikasa will kill me. We promised each other we’ll see the world. I’ll-”

“Please, everything will be okay.” You whisper as Sasha injects the morphine into the boy’s back. You feel him become limp under your touch and you only realize now that you’re shaking again. The nurses shake their head and file away, eager to return to their own duties. 

“You can go to the back if you need to.” Sasha touches your shoulder. You don’t even look back to her, but you nod nonetheless. Your feet guide you to the balcony of the floor. The London smoke wafts into your senses. You shiver again, but the only thing in your head is the look of the boy as he begs you for his friend’s life. You feel a knot form in your throat and you sob. You shake in fear and in the indignity of it all. You already knew this world was cruel, hell you enlisted to be part of the war effort because you wanted to help the world and make any sort of a difference. But now the realization hits you. Your heart drops and you feel your knees go weak. You live in a cruel world and there is not a damn thing you can do about it.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everybody! Thank you so much for reading. All comments are greatly appreciated!! This is my first time writing anything snk/aot based so please leave any advice or words of wisdom, or just let me know how I'm doing so far! Thank you for reading :)
> 
> Next chapter: we get to know Sasha a bit more, you meet a new patient, and you spend more time treating Levi.


End file.
